Present Generations - Part 2

(in my uncle's words) 
 My Parents:

Chai Joon Hugh: October 1, 1901-November 27, 1989
Moy King Hugh: April 22, 1901 - August 31, 1997

My father was born in our native village and died in New York. His milk name (given at birth) was Ming Dung. His official name (given at marriage or age 18) was Chai Joon. His paper name in America was Doo Chong Hugh. He took another name for himself, so-called school name, Ngai Ngan which only he and a few other people knew.

My father was a very intelligent and smart man. He was also known, and so nicknamed, as a quiet man. He lost his own father when he was only 6 years old. He spent a good part of his childhood and education with his maternal grandmother. Naturally all the Lai would love him and spoiled him. His grandma was a very kind person. We met this great-grandma when we were kids. His rich uncles who came to America were also kind to him, once took him to Guangzhou to learn a trade. So he was exposed to city culture in his teens. He was the best behaving and the smartest boy among all his cousins. In his final years of school, 8th grade, he graduated first in his class of 120.

My father was good in Chinese classic literature. His handwriting was beautiful. His composition was classic and fluent. He was a typical intellectual and gentleman.

My mother was born in the village of On Fun District from a Moy family. Today, Feb. 20, 1990, she is still living and well in Baltimore. She fractured her T-12 and L-1 spine Jan. 9, 1990 when she slipped on ice.

My mother's father was the oldest son in a family of 6. Being the oldest, he had to look after all his four younger brothers and one sister. The family was in fish business, not catching fish, but selling fish. He died young. Later all his four brothers came to America. So the family became "rich."

My mother's mother was from a Loo family in a faraway county Nam Hoi, a county town called Fut-san. That was very near Guangzhou, the most fertile land in the Pearl River delta. Therefore she brought in new genes and new blood to our family. My maternal grandmother was the kindest woman in the world. We grew up on her lap. She told us stories, taught us what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad. She died in the early 1950's. My mother's older brother died of tuberculosis in New York in the 1960's. My mother's younger brother died at age 16 on his sea journey home from America.

My mother never did attend formal school. She attended only two intermittent years of informal private group tutoring. She could write simple letters and read newspapers. My mother is a small person, somewhat frail. She is calm, kind, pleasant and soft-spoken. She is very intelligent and smart. Her power of observation, analysis and judgment was most remarkable. She loves to explain things from the beginning to the end, in great detail and logistic sequence. I love to have conversation with my mother all day and all night ever since I was a little kid. Although outwardly she is small and frail, but inside she is very strong, rational and determined. In her generation, many villagers, men and women, also sought her advice and counsel often, more so than to my fraternal grandmother.

My father and mother were married on November 9, 1919 when they were 18. It was a customary and traditional matchmaker arrangement. However, my mother's mother was modern and bold enough to break the tradition - she secretly took one look at my father before she accepted the deal. My parents' first son was a stillbirth. Second one was my brother who almost didn't make it, because my mother had malaria and jaundice during pregnancy and post partum . Grandmother died at age 51 when my parents were 21 and my brother was only 2 years old. I was born a year later, October 22, 1924 (lunar calendar).

My father taught school either shortly before or after he married. He first taught in a one-man school, one teacher taught all six grades and was away from home most of the year. Later he taught in our own district school where they had 4 or 5 teachers for all six grades. His income was about 400 silver dollars a year, hardly enough to make ends meet. He was a very good teacher.